Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-08

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries, primary and secondary schools close for two months or more in the summer holidays.

What is the value of long school holidays?

What are the arguments in favour of shorter school holidays?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In many nations, primary and secondary schools students enjoy a two months or more summer holidays. In my opinion, this long vacation is highly beneficial, because it gives students the chance to do their favorite hobbies or to learn new skills.

First and foremost, most children love summer holidays because they get the chance to engage in various activity, such as spending quality time with their friends in a long vacation, which can help them to strengthen thier relationships. They also can pratice their hobbies such as swimming or painting. Which can be very relieving for student and they get good rest before the beginning of the school year. In addition, many young students prefer to learn a new skill in the summer. For example, they can learn a new language or coding and that could be helpful for them at school or in future career.

However, some people argue that long holidays can have several disadvantages regarding students atitude when they get back to school. For instance, these long rest can make children return to shcool much more difficult and they sufer to concentrate in the first few classes. Furthermore, some children loss the motivation to study because they got used to leasure activities. Therefore, a shorter holiday could be a more balanced solution.

In conclusion, although long vacation can have some drawbakcs such as the difficulty to focus at the first few classes, I believe that long school holidays is essential for children to recover and to partice their hobbies.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You give a clear overall view that long holidays benefit children, and you also address the case for shorter breaks by noting that students may struggle to concentrate or lose motivation when they return. These points are relevant, but the response only partly develops the task: the benefits are explained in more detail than the arguments for shorter holidays, and the latter are mainly limited to adjustment and study motivation. The examples of learning a language or coding help illustrate one benefit, but the discussion would be stronger with fuller explanation and a specific example for each side. Make your position on the value of long holidays and the case for shorter ones more balanced and consistently supported.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, a paragraph supporting long holidays, a contrasting paragraph, and a conclusion. Linking expressions such as “First and foremost,” “In addition,” “However,” and “In conclusion” make the direction of the argument easy to follow. However, some connections are mechanical or unclear. For example, “Which can be very relieving” is a sentence fragment, and the opening paragraph’s list of activities is crowded into one sentence. References such as “these long rest” also make the relationship between ideas less smooth. Group each main point into complete, clearly connected sentences, and use pronouns and linking phrases that refer unambiguously to the preceding idea.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “strengthen their relationships,” “learn a new language,” “motivation to study,” and “balanced solution.” However, the range is limited and several noticeable spelling, word-form, and collocation errors reduce precision: “pratice,” “thier,” “drawbakcs,” and “leasure” are misspelled, while “engage in various activity” and “long rest” are not natural forms. Repeated use of “long holidays,” “students,” and “children” also limits variety. Build a more accurate set of phrases for discussing school breaks, learning, and adjustment, and check spelling and plural forms carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a reason clause with “because” and a conditional-style example about skills helping students in the future. However, complex sentences are often not controlled successfully, and errors occur frequently enough to affect fluency. For example, “Which can be very relieving for student” is an incomplete sentence, while “primary and secondary schools students” has an incorrect noun structure. There are also problems with agreement and number in “long school holidays is essential” and “these long rest can make children.” Practise building complete sentences around one main clause, then check subject–verb agreement, articles, and singular/plural forms.

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